Election Report

The chatterers on the tube are so uniformly uninteresting that I'm at the computer, getting what I really want anyway: numbers. Or at least, I'm getting numbers from the states that know how to run a website, a group that unfortunately does not include my home state of California. Aren't we the wired capital of the universe? Then why is our server struggling to put out pages—while piddly South Dakota serves up results in a flash? Missouri does well, too. And Minnesota ain't half bad.

I mention SD, MO and MN, by the way, because they are the only states where we Dems have any hope left. And yes, I still care, even if the party sucks and has no vision. I tinkered with the idea of voting Green but frankly, that social and economic justice message strikes me as a too paternalistic, too group-identity fixated. At this point, anybody without a D or an R after their name is just whistling Dixie.

Results as of 10:36 p.m. Pacific Standard Time: It's a complete wipeout. Talent is going to eke out a less-than-1-percent win in MO; Thune is overtaking Johnson in SD and will win by an equally small margin; and Coleman appears headed toward a 3-4 point win in MN. Not unreasonably, Bush is going to see this as a mandate. Which is scary.

Update: Carnahan concedes in MO (margin of defeat will actually be about 1.5 percent), and Coleman maintaining lead in MN. Only the Johnson-Thune race is outstanding, and it's going right down to the wire: with less than 15 percent of the precincts remaining to report, Thune's lead is 1,000 votes out of more than 250,000 cast.

Last update: Johnson is toast in SD, behind by 2,000 votes with probably only 10,000 votes to count. So EVERY competitive race went to the Republicans, and they will hold a 52-46 margin in the Senate, pending the Lousiana runoff and with one independent.